


Residue

by LtLJ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-22
Updated: 2006-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stackhouse's team, though they were crap at finding anything technological, was great at trading. From the sergeant's reports, his team just wandered vaguely around the area near the stargate and friendly natives leapt out of the bushes with baskets of fruit and vegetables. John's team was great at finding Ancient artifacts and things that desperately wanted to kill them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Residue

John should have known they were screwed when the mission that morning went without a hitch.

"Well, yet another successful trading mission," Rodney said with a eye roll, as they strolled back to the jumper. "That makes what? Two?"

"Three, counting the one where they didn't try to kill us until after we loaded the jumper," Ford told him, grinning.

"Hey, nothing tried to eat us this time," John pointed out. "I'd say that alone puts this one in the top ten." It was a bright sunny afternoon, and the area around the stargate was all open fields with various crops. The Tenaians had actually been fairly business-like, which was something of a relief, and they had cut the deal for a shipment of rualla grain with a minimum of effort.

"Yeah, this was the easiest mission we've had so far, and we got some good stuff," Ford agreed. He added, "I can't wait to tell Stackhouse all about it."

John snorted. He suspected Ford had been getting some ribbing from the other gate teams. Stackhouse's team, though they were crap at finding anything technological, was great at trading. From the sergeant's reports, his team just wandered vaguely around the area near the stargate and friendly natives leapt out of the bushes with baskets of fruit and vegetables. John's team was great at finding Ancient artifacts and things that desperately wanted to kill them.

"We did do very well. Though I was hoping they would grow our red tea here," Teyla said, absently cradling her P-90.

John glanced at her, grimacing. "Yeah, sorry about that. I know we used up a lot of it." The reddish bitter Athosian tea had turned out to be everyone's favorite substitute once the coffee supply had run out, and they had finished off the last of it a few days ago. John knew there were hoarded supplies of coffee and Earth tea all over Atlantis, but those were probably going fast, too. The medlab was supposedly the department most flagrantly violating the rules about personal food supplies and hoarding, but John wasn't going to antagonize Beckett, who controlled the pain-killer supply and occasionally performed life-saving operations on him.

Teyla shook her head, smiling. "We had no idea it would not grow in the soil of the mainland, or we would have tried to bring more from Athos. Most of our supply for the year was left behind, but it was thought more important to bring the seeds and root cuttings for our staple foods." She shrugged. "I suppose we could have made it last longer, but rationing something meant for comfort seems unnecessarily hard, at these times. At some point, we will find a world where it grows. It was not native to Athos, either."

"Well, some of us had more than our share." John looked pointedly at Rodney.

Rodney snorted. "Please, you know I never liked that stuff. It was you military types and the operations staff who were guzzling it like it was laced with heroin."

"Hey, you drank it too, I saw you," Ford protested.

"Of course I drank it, it had caffeine." Rodney shook his head with a pained expression. "I never thought we'd really run out of coffee. I felt certain we'd all be dead before then."

John eyed him. "Yeah, sorry we blew your schedule."

They reached the jumper, and dialed the gate to tell the operations staff to get the medical supplies for trade ready to send through. Not long after that, the Tenaians started to arrive with the first carts. While they were loading and unloading, John paused to sift a handful of grain from one of the baskets. The rualla actually smelled good, even raw; it was a rich yeasty aroma, like baking bread.

Rodney leaned over to sniff the basket. "This is the first time since the meatloaf MREs ran out that I'm actually looking forward to dinner."

"What, you're not going to miss toba root surprise?" John asked innocently.

Rodney grimaced. "You know the 'surprise' part meant that the toba roots came from the bottom of the bins and were frozen right before they finally collapsed into rot."

John narrowed his eyes. "You're making that up."

Rodney shuddered. "Believe me, there are things about our food supply that you don't want to know."

John wasn't going to argue that point.

They made the exchange and the Tenaians happily waved goodbye.

  
***

  
The debriefing was short, and Rodney and Ford both left early, while John and Teyla stayed behind while Elizabeth quickly refigured their supply projections for the next few months. "This is going to help enormously," Elizabeth said with a thoughtful frown, turning the laptop so they could see the screen. John was sure congratulating them on an accomplished mission made a nice change for her from commiserating with them while Beckett patched up the bleeding in the infirmary. "It means we can concentrate our recon missions on Ancient technology for the next month, and not worry quite so much about where our next meal is coming from."

"And you won the bet for once," John told her. From what he had heard in the mess that morning, the money had been split evenly between hostile villagers and large predators, but Elizabeth always bet on them to succeed.

"I did," Elizabeth agreed archly. "I can now corner the market in cranberry power bars."

Teyla looked pleased as well. "Can my people's portion of the grain be sent to them today, if possible? This would go a long way toward assuaging disappointment over our last crop failure."

"I don't see why not," Elizabeth told her. "As soon as it passes the bio lab check, it can go straight out to the mainland."

"I'll tell them to hold the afternoon jumper for it," John added. Every offworld food shipment was screened for suspicious substances and tested, just in case.

"Well," Elizabeth said, "I think we can call this day a success."

Then the alarms started to go off and Rodney was yelling at them via headset and John spent the rest of the day with the Marines and a team from Physics, Ancient Tech and Operations, frantically tracking down the source of the sudden small explosion on the east pier.

  
***

  
When John sat down in the mess that night, his BDUs were stiff with saltwater, he had a mild burn on his right arm, and his back was sore after breaking Private Riesman's fall with his body. "You okay?" he asked Teyla wearily.

"Yes, Dr. Beckett said it was only a minor burn." Yawning, she fished a fork out of the caddy on the table. "Though I am very sorry about Miko's hair. I am sure it will look much better once the singed part is cut off."

John reached for the water pitcher, wincing when lifting it pulled at his strained muscles. "I'm just glad neither of you lost anything that won't grow back."

"Ancient power tools become explosive if exposed to prolonged contact with salt water," Rodney snarled, slamming his tray down next to John's. "Who the hell saw that one coming?"

John shook his head, too tired to go over it all again. He tuned out the litany of doom and complaint until Rodney said, in a different tone, "This isn't bad. It's that rualla we got today, isn't it?"

Teyla nodded. "They used it in one of my people's recipes, substituting it for the toba root. I have never had it like this before, but it is very good."

John hadn't really been paying attention to what he was eating. It was a bready casserole-like thing with brown gravy-like stuff. Now that he bothered to notice, it was pretty good. "Yeah, it is."

  
***

  
Sometime that night, John woke, blinked at the familiar silver ceiling panels of his quarters in Atlantis, and thought, _Is it hot in here?_

He shoved himself upright and the overhead lights came on for him. They dimmed again immediately, but there was still enough light for him to watch the room do a slow drunken spin. _Maybe not. Maybe it's me._ When the spin finished, John thought the room looked funny, off-kilter. He had a flash of panic that the city had heeled over in the sea. Then he realized he was the one who had heeled over, that he was hanging awkwardly off the side of his bed. _Oh yeah, it's me._

He shoved the blankets away and managed to tumble off the bed, using the momentum to roll sort of upright. At first it had felt a little like a bad hangover, but now that he was moving around, it felt more like alcohol poisoning. His body ached in ways it never had before, little arcs of pain moving up and down his spinal column, through the nerves in his arms and legs. He wasn't having trouble breathing, and his throat didn't seem to be swelling, and it was like nothing he knew to look for in an allergic reaction. But it had to be a reaction to something; it had come on too fast to be anything else.

He was glad he had slept in sweatpants and a t-shirt, because there was no way he could get dressed. In a stumbling awkward three-step process, he managed to grab his headset off the bedside table, lurch to his feet, and stagger to the door.

It slid open for him and he grabbed the side, holding himself up. "This is Sheppard," he rasped, keying the headset, "I--" _Think I'm having a medical emergency,_ he had been about to say.

Doors were open up and down the corridor, and all along it people were stumbling out, pale, shaky, hunched over, badly ill. The radio crackled in his ear with static, emergency calls coming in from all over the city. "Oh, no," John whispered, dread and rage gathering in his chest. _It's the new grain, it has to be._ "Those fucking bastards poisoned us."

  
***

  
John made it up to the corridor transporter, then went to the gate room control gallery. There were only two people at the stations, Laroque and Campbell, and both looked as though the only thing keeping them upright was force of will. Ford was propping himself up on the dialing console, and Peter Grodin was hunched in the station chair, his face a tight grimace of pain. "The shield?" John asked, staggering over to lean on the back of Grodin's chair.

"It's up, sir," Ford said. He looked like he had just run a marathon. John wasn't sure if Ford was less affected or if the fact that he was younger was allowing him to cope better. "Sergeant Bates and the gate room security team are sick, too. I sent them down to the medlab. I've tried to call Stackhouse, Markham, everybody, but nobody in quarters is responding. I sent Smith to find them, and now he's not responding."

_Crap. It's even worse than it looks._ If Bates had willingly left his post, then he must be practically dead. John gritted his teeth and locked his knees to keep from falling over. "Any contact from the mainland?"

Ford winced, shaking his head. "Dr. Grodin tried to call before he got really bad. He couldn't get a response."

John took a sharp breath. All the Athosians, the kids. They must have served the grain for dinner, just the way the messhall had. "What about you?"

"I got it, too, but I'm not as bad as you guys." Ford nodded down to Grodin. "If you could help Dr. Grodin to the medlab, sir--"

"Negative, Lieutenant, I--"

"Major, if Dr. Beckett can fix you guys, then I can collapse," Ford pointed out desperately. "If we both stay here, it'll be you then me, then we'll really be screwed. More than we already are."

John took a deep breath. He was right. _Damn it._ "I'll relieve you as soon as I can."

John got Grodin upright, and together they made it down to the medlab. Grodin folded not far inside the door, and John almost went with him but someone caught him and held him up. It was Beckett, his face pale and gray. John said, "They tested the grain, I saw the report. What the hell happened?" All the bays, as far as he could see, were packed with people. Every diagnostic table and bed was occupied, every inch of floor space between them covered with makeshift pallets, except for narrow paths for the medical personnel to get around. A few nurses and some other people were on their feet, carrying supplies, monitoring equipment, but not many. Not enough.

"Something new, something we didn't know to test for." Beckett shook his head. He gave John a push further into the room and leaned down to pick up Grodin. "All the beds are full, go over here. I'll come and take a blood sample as soon as I can. I can't isolate the damn thing yet, whatever it is."

"Where's Elizabeth?" John asked, staggering in that direction.

"There." Beckett nodded toward one of the beds and John saw Elizabeth curled up in it, unconscious. "She was one of the first to collapse."

_Oh no,_ John thought, leaning on the end of Elizabeth's bed. Everything they had been through, everything they had survived, it just wasn't fucking fair. They couldn't be taken out by a bunch of psychotic murdering farmers. And his team had brought the damn grain here.

He supposed the Tenaians' plan was to wait a couple of days until they were all dead, then come through the gate. He hoped a lot of the bastards came all at once, when they walked into the gate shield. He heard a noise near his feet, and looked down to see Rodney lying on a pallet.

Hanging onto the bed to keep his balance, John eased down to the floor and leaned over him. "McKay?"

"Major, you too?" Rodney gasped. His eyes were tightly shut. "I think it was the...explosion. There must have been a chemical released that we...were exposed to. If--"

John shook his head, slumping over against the foot of Elizabeth's bed. "Rodney, it's not just us. It's everybody."

Rodney's eyes opened a slit. "Everybody?"

"Everybody."

Rodney closed his eyes. "Oh, well, we're screwed, then." He laughed weakly. "Oh, God. Nice knowing you."

"Yeah." John tried to drag himself up again, but his body just wouldn't cooperate. He slid down onto the floor next to Rodney. "We're screwed."

He was still conscious when Teyla crawled over and curled up next to him, pillowing her head on his chest. "It was the grain," she said miserably.

"Uh huh," John said, and thought _famous last words._

  
***

  
"Oof," Rodney muttered, "God, my back." He needed a firm mattress, but this was ridiculous.

He opened his eyes, took in the ceiling of the infirmary, and remembered. _Right, floor of the medlab, dying._ God, they were a noisy bunch for dying people. All the groaning. And they smelled pretty ripe, too. _Poisoned. The Tenaians poisoned us,_ he thought. _I really should be dead now. We should be...._ He felt around on the sweaty warm body he was pressed against and felt Sheppard's ribs move beneath his t-shirt, heard a breathy exhalation. _Good, good._ He found Teyla's hair, where her head was still pillowed on Sheppard's chest. Teyla growled. _That's a relief._ Rodney didn't feel particularly dead, either. In fact, he wanted a drink of water and he thought he could get up and get it.

Gritting his teeth, he got an arm to move and managed to lever himself up. Squinting, he looked around the room. They were still surrounded by unconscious or semi-conscious people. A few -- Johnson, Sorenson, Larouqe, Sayyar -- were still staggering around, trying to tend the others. Rodney rubbed his face. He felt like he had the Asian Death Bird Flu From Hell, but that was about ten times better than he had felt when he collapsed. "Hey, I think I'm coming out of it," he gasped. He looked down at Sheppard, shaking his shoulder. "Are you coming out of it?"

Sheppard hissed, "Get off." Teyla growled again.

"And that would be a no," Rodney groaned. He shoved to his feet.

He leaned over the bed and peered at Elizabeth until he was sure she was breathing. She opened her eyes a slit and patted his hand, but he didn't think she was really conscious. "Right," he muttered. "I'll be back."

He weaved away through the medlab, unsteady on his feet. Everybody still looked like hell, but at least they looked like living hell. He stumbled across Simpson and Radek and a whole clutch of people from his lab, all groaning and semi-conscious but alive. Miko blinked at him and tried to sit up, and he waved her back down, saying, "I'm going to find Carson. I'll be back."

He finally found Beckett huddled on a bench in the lab area, surrounded by laptops and printouts. "Carson." Rodney leaned on the counter. "Are we dying or what? Because frankly, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take."

"No one's died," Carson said, not taking his eyes off the laptop screen. "It wasn't poison."

"Oh. That's good." This was so unexpected, and Rodney was so exhausted, he couldn't give it the reaction it deserved. He shook his head, baffled. "Hold it, it was a non-fatal poison? What's the point of that? Because when this wears off, we're going to be insanely angry. Oh wait, it will wear off, won't it? Because if this is a permanent condition--"

"Rodney." Carson finally looked at him. Exasperated, he said, "It wasn't poison. How much of the Athosian tea do you normally drink? Before it ran out?"

"Not that much. I have a cup occasionally in the--" Rodney stared, his brain catching up. "It's the tea? The poison was in the tea? How did it get in there?"

"It's not poison," Carson said, not patiently. "Sheppard and Teyla, they're both very badly off. Do you know how much they tended to drink?"

"A lot. All the military did. They put it in the water bottles when they work out...." Rodney shook his head, gesturing helplessly. "Are you insane? How could it be the tea? The Athosians have been drinking it for decades, we've been drinking it for months, almost the whole time we've been here. It's impossible, unless the poison was introduced--"

"Rodney, for the love of God!" Carson shouted. "It's not poison! I think we're in withdrawal."

  
***

  
"Are you coherent?"

John managed to get his gummy eyes open. Rodney was leaning over him. "Huh?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes,' or at least a 'not any less coherent than usual,'" Rodney said.

John frowned up at him. Rodney looked a lot better than he had the last time John had seen him. He managed to lift his head a little. They were still in the medlab, though the floor was a lot less crowded and more people seemed to be up and moving. His brow furrowed as he noticed something else. "Why is there tape on the floor around us?"

"I marked off the minimum safe distance," Rodney explained. "I didn't want anybody to get hurt. There was a period of about three hours where you really, really didn't want to be disturbed."

"Oh, good." John dragged his arm over his eyes. He was beginning to wonder if they weren't dying. He vaguely remembered that Rodney usually sounded a lot more upset than this when they were dying. "What's the status on the poisoning everybody situation?"

"It's not poison," Rodney said, sounding more annoyed than anything else. "We're in withdrawal, from the Athosian tea."

John lifted his arm so he could stare blankly at Rodney. "Withdrawal?"

"Withdrawal. Apparently there's a substance in the tea that didn't turn up in the testing we did." Rodney waved both hands in the air. "It's harmless, until you stop taking it. Most people are through the initial 'God, please kill me now' stage. Carson says in a couple more days, we'll be good as new." He added bitterly, "The bastard wasn't hit nearly as hard as we were, because he's been hoarding coffee and black tea from Earth and sharing it with the nurses and the med techs. When I can look at a screen without my head exploding, I'm changing my will and leaving my civilian clothes and my last three chocolate packets to Radek."

"Withdrawal?" John repeated, having trouble getting his mind around it. "The hell?"

"Oh for the love of the Ancestors," Teyla said thickly from somewhere below John's line of sight. "Tell me you are joking."

Rodney sighed. "Yes, it's a hilarious joke, ha ha. No, I'm not kidding. Carson wanted me to ask you if you ever heard any stories about Athosians who left your planet for a long period of time, until any tea they had brought with them ran out, if they went through any short but extremely violent periods of illness."

Teyla was silent for a time. Then she said, "That-- I-- Oh, no."

"I'll tell Carson that's a 'yes,'" Rodney said, and pushed wearily to his feet.

There was another short period of silence. "Hey, at least our team didn't get everybody poisoned," John said finally. "That would be mostly you."

"Stop talking, please," Teyla said.

  
***

  
Three days later, John went into Elizabeth's office, collapsed into the guest chair, and put his head down on her desk. "Hi."

"Hello." Elizabeth was leaning back in her chair with a cold compress on her forehead. "I'd ask how you are, but I think I can guess. How is Teyla?"

"Still apologizing." John sat up and propped his head in his hands. They had a couple more days before the substance in the tea, undetectable to their first tests and harmless, unless the level in your bloodstream dropped, was completely out of their systems. "I think the worst is over, though."

"Yes, Halling keeps calling to ask me what they can do to make it up to us." Elizabeth sighed. "I finally pointed out that since we were the reason they had to leave Athos in the first place, we're not really in any position to point fingers, especially about something they had no idea would happen."

"That's what I told Teyla. And they had it a lot worse than we did." John let out his breath. "Rodney's agitating that we set up a series of trade missions looking for a replacement for the tea and coffee supply."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and threw the compress down on the desk. "Oh, right. We should get right on that."

"Really?"

"No."

**end**


End file.
